American History: Life in the 1950s
28 June 2012
Actor James Dean in the 1956 film "Giant"
Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION – American history in VOA Special English. I’m Steve Ember.
Imagine a time machine. You’ve just climbed into it for the purpose of visiting the United States – in the nineteen-fifties.
What would you expect to find?
In the nineteen fifties, America was a nation whose population was growing as never before. It was a nation where the popular culture of television was both reflecting and influencing its lifestyle.
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But it was also a nation that believed it was on the edge of nuclear war.
Americans were happy to put World War Two behind them. The war ended in nineteen forty-five. People were hopeful. They thought the world would be peaceful for a while.
By nineteen fifty, however, political tensions were high again.
The United States and the Soviet Union were allies in World War Two. But, after the war, they became enemies in what came to be known as the Cold War.
Communists took control of one eastern European nation after another. The Soviet Union led by Josef Stalin strengthened its armed forces. However, the United States thought America alone possessed the most powerful weapon of all -- the atomic bomb.
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